tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post7210362498520028764..comments2015-03-03T15:41:14.390-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Thomas Hardy: At Castle BoterelZephirinenoreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-72516579804358685752012-10-08T00:39:34.723-07:002012-10-08T00:39:34.723-07:00Susan,
A leap into the turquoise -- just what the...Susan,<br /><br />A leap into the turquoise -- just what the old geezers here need about now.<br /><br /><br />To wake up in Time<br />is to be alive,<br />inhabit the moment,<br />to lay claim to it —<br />a note sounded just once,<br />possessing infinite sustain.<br /><br />Hazen&#39;s lines a complement to Hardy&#39;s poem, accentuating the positive a bit more than TH might have (well, good for Hazen).<br /><br /><br />Vassilis has earlier mentioned John Crowe Ransom&#39;s 1961 edition of Hardy (which went into paperback with Collier), in effect the introduction to/sanction upon Hardy&#39;s poetry for an American academic audience.<br /><br />Ransom&#39;s attitude toward Hardy is ambivalent always, respectful of the skills, patronising toward the &quot;primitivism&quot;. Still he paid attention, and in this piece he talks about Hardy&#39;s use of the &quot;folk line&quot;.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.tnr.com/book/review/hardy%E2%80%94old-poet#" rel="nofollow">&quot;Hardy: Old Poet&quot;--John Crowe Ransom, The New Republic, 1952</a><br /><br /><br />Bill is spot on in relating Hardy and Creeley. The affinity was felt more intensely by Creeley as he grew older. This happens with Hardy. The poem Bill quotes, &quot;Versions&quot;, comes from a set of a half dozen writ in 1981 under direct influence of TH. It was Hardy&#39;s example that released Creeley into the material he develops in what I think is the strongest poem in that set, &quot;Mother&#39;s Voice&quot;. At the time a neighbor who&#39;d acquired a mimeo machine as a sort of curious vintage toy asked me to produce some books on it. I asked Bob for work, and he sent the poems in that little set. Here is the title piece.<br /><br /><a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/robert-creeley-mothers-voice.html" rel="nofollow">Robert Creeley: Mother&#39;s Voice</a>TChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-59960837046886894992012-10-07T17:41:53.686-07:002012-10-07T17:41:53.686-07:00All this of late, Hardy’s poems and your fine delv...All this of late, Hardy’s poems and your fine delving here and yesterday, remind me of Borges’s “Límites”—the two poems by that name—but especially the longer one from Nuevo Antología Personal. Of which, the final verse:<br /><br />Creo en el alba oír un atareado<br />rumor de multitudes que se alejan;<br />son lo que me ha querido y olvidado;<br />espacio y tiempo y Borges ya me dejan.<br /><br />At dawn I seem to hear the busy <br />murmur of a crowd moving away;<br />they are what I have loved and forgotten;<br />space and time and Borges now leave me.Hazenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13417573435195561519noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-41175239906529561022012-10-07T17:21:40.142-07:002012-10-07T17:21:40.142-07:00Old love&#39;s domain
is where I live
in my little...Old love&#39;s domain<br />is where I live<br />in my little cave<br />planning my jumps<br />into the summer waters<br /><br />into the turquoise.<br />The slate stone so smooth<br />platelets<br /><br />dark with quartz <br />as a rough surprise<br /><br />Pink in the sun. I swim there<br />instead of the little cove<br />differently. Solid.<br />I heard<br /><br />Ezra Pound&#39;s castle<br />was somewhere around here.Susan Kay Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16277139119869470939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-36828967482139407142012-10-07T10:31:04.848-07:002012-10-07T10:31:04.848-07:00Creeley&#39;s &quot;Versions / After Hardy&quot; o...Creeley&#39;s &quot;Versions / After Hardy&quot; originally in &quot;Mirrors&quot; now page 204 in the Collected 1975-2005<br />is such a wonderful homage: <br /><br />Why would she come to him,<br />come to him,<br />in such disguise<br /><br />to look again at him—<br />look again—<br />with vacant eyes—<br /><br />and why the pain still,<br />the pain—<br />still useless to them—<br /><br />as if to begin again—<br />again begin—<br />what had never been?<br /><br /> .<br /><br />Why be<br />persistently<br />hurtful—<br />no truth<br />to tell<br />or wish to?<br />Why?<br /><br /> .<br /><br />The weather&#39;s still grey<br />and the clouds gather<br />where they once walked<br />out together,<br /><br />watched the world with<br />a faint happiness,<br />watched it die<br />in the same place.<br /><br />...<br /><br />These 3 &quot;versions&quot; feel true to Hardy, and yet somehow seem very Creeleyesque at the same time—true to his own poetic genius . . . <br /><br /> <br /><br /><br /><br />Bill Knotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10848525067425082815noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-52710888251708438822012-10-07T10:05:29.122-07:002012-10-07T10:05:29.122-07:00Hart Crane, in a letter to Yvor Winters dated May ...Hart Crane, in a letter to Yvor Winters dated May 29, 1927, writes this of Hardy: <br /><br />&quot;I think him perhaps the greatest technician in English verse since Shakespeare.&quot;Bill Knotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10848525067425082815noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-3838314603255319852012-10-07T09:28:43.610-07:002012-10-07T09:28:43.610-07:00Every moment passes
but this one.
This one lives, ...Every moment passes<br />but this one.<br />This one lives, stays,<br />adheres to consciousness,<br />takes root in the heart,<br />graces a lifetime . . .<br />its quality unlike <br />others in the stream.<br /><br />To wake up in Time<br />is to be alive,<br />inhabit the moment,<br />to lay claim to it —<br />a note sounded just once, <br />possessing infinite sustain.Hazenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13417573435195561519noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-19719509765431181612012-10-07T09:19:51.273-07:002012-10-07T09:19:51.273-07:00Tom,
A pleasure to read this (heretofore unknown)...Tom,<br /><br />A pleasure to read this (heretofore unknown) poem, such &quot;a flood of life caught in this crystal&quot; as Pound says, such control of the line, sound, emotion (only barely held in check, Hardy the master in fine form.<br /><br />And these photos too!<br /><br /> 10.7 <br /><br />whiteness of fog moving across shadowed<br />ridge, sunlit red of apples on branches<br />in foreground, wave sounding in channel<br /><br /> no matter how singular both<br /> objects, as “so exact”<br /><br /> planes of light under table,<br /> situation, of subject<br /><br />silver line of sun reflected in channel, <br />line of cloud in pale blue sky above it<br />STEPHEN RATCLIFFEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339481653546188412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-40326326643653248512012-10-07T08:26:12.084-07:002012-10-07T08:26:12.084-07:00Is - that we two passed
...
a single line makes ...Is - that we two passed<br /><br />...<br /><br />a single line makes it.gamefacedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16562522181852339258noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-69652859397090251012012-10-07T08:17:31.516-07:002012-10-07T08:17:31.516-07:00Another one of Hardy&#39;s many timelessly poigna...Another one of Hardy&#39;s many timelessly poignant poems.vazambam (Vassilis Zambaras)http://www.blogger.com/profile/14515165428574974933noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-71133309254658061842012-10-06T17:26:38.410-07:002012-10-06T17:26:38.410-07:00A note on poetry by TH:
&quot;What made poetry 20...A note on poetry by TH:<br /><br />&quot;What made poetry 2000 years ago makes poetry now.&quot;<br /><br />Ezra Pound on TH&#39;s poetry (1938):<br /><br />&quot;No man can read Hardy&#39;s poems collected but that his own life, and forgotten moments of it, will come back to him, a flash here and an hour there. Have you a better test of true poetry?...<br /><br />&quot;There is a flood of life caught in this crystal.&quot;<br /><br />Virginia Woolf and her husband Leonard visited TH at Max Gate near the end of his life, in July 1926. She wrote up six pages in her diary on the visit.<br /><br />Hardy -- &quot;a little puffy cheeked cheerful old man&quot; -- served her &quot;a good tea&quot;. He confessed he did not care much for modern fiction.<br /><br />&quot;&#39;They&#39;ve changed everything now,&#39; he said. &#39;We used to think there was a beginning and a middle and an end. We believed in the Aristotelian theory. Now one of those stories came to an end with a woman going out of the room&#39;.&quot;<br /><br />When she left, her host presented her (at Mrs H&#39;s prompting) with a copy of her favourite among his novels, The Mayor of Casterbridge. In the dedication he mispelt her name as &quot;Wolff&quot;.TChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.com